A poem by SIMRAN DIVATIA. The nurse, in worried tones whispers to my mother “but your daughter is so dark, what will people say?” I had not been alive for a single day before I was nothing more than the shade of my skin, and as I grew up, and it grew light, something still didn’t sit right, that people praised the change, as though fair was seen as the greatest thing a girl could be. Featured image from Brick Lane, directed by Sarah Gavron, 2007